Authorship and co-authorship should be based on a substantial intellectual contribution. It is assumed that all authors have had a significant role in the creation of an article that bears their names. Therefore, the list of authors on an article serves multiple purposes; it indicates who is responsible for the work and to whom questions regarding the work should be addressed. Moreover, the credit implied by authorship is often used as a measure of the contributors’ productivity when they are evaluated for employment, promotions, grants, and prizes.

The IEEE affirms that authorship credit must be reserved for individuals who have met each of the following conditions:

Made a significant intellectual contribution to the theoretical development, system or experimental design, prototype development, and/or the analysis and interpretation of data associated with the work contained in the article;

Contributed to drafting the article or reviewing and/or revising it for intellectual content; and

Approved the final version of the article as accepted for publication, including references.

Inclusion of deceased persons is deemed appropriate, as authors

should be so included with a footnote reporting their death.

In articles with multiple authorship, the order of the authors shall be at the discretion of the authors.

Once the list and order of authors has been established, the list and order of authors should not be altered without permission of all living authors.

Any part of an article essential to its main conclusions must be the responsibility of at least one author.

In the case of articles with multiple authors, a “corresponding” author must be designated as having responsibility for overseeing the publication process and ensuring the integrity of the final document. The corresponding author accepts the responsibility for:

Including as co-authors all persons appropriate and none inappropriate;

Obtaining from all co-authors their assent to be designated as such, as well as their approval of the final version of the article as accepted for publication; and

Keeping all co-authors apprised of the current status of an article submitted for publication, including furnishing all co-authors with copies of the reviewers’ comments and a copy of the published version, as appropriate.

Co-authors have responsibility for work submitted under their names. They should remain knowledgeable in so far as possible regarding the contents and status of the article, including the nature of any revisions.

If an article is revised and resubmitted to the same journal, coauthors should be asked by the corresponding author to reaffirm their assent to be listed as co-authors and to approve the revised version. In addition, if the article is rejected or withdrawn from a journal and then submitted to a different IEEE journal, the co-authors should be asked again by the corresponding author to affirm their assent to authorship even if no substantive changes have been made.

Co-authors have the right to withdraw their names from an article at any time before acceptance of the article by the editor. However, an author’s or co-author’s name should not be removed from an article without his or her permission. The responsible editor shall be notified of any change in authorship.

Revisions to the Section 8.2.1.A - Authorship, as contained in this manual, require the review and approval of the IEEE Board of Directors, using the process in accordance with IEEE Bylaw I-300.4(5).

B. RESPONSIBILITIES OF AUTHORS OF ARTICLES PUBLISHED BY IEEE

Peer review is essential to discourse. Authors are encouraged to have the first formal publication of their results be a peer reviewed article.

Financial support of the work being reported and of the authors should be clearly acknowledged in the article, as well as any potential conflict of interest.

Methods and materials should be described in sufficient detail to permit evaluation and replication.

All data should be presented upon request by the editor, to facilitate the review process.

When submitting an article, authors shall disclose whether or not the article has been published previously or if it is still under active consideration by another publication. In addition, if an author submits an article to a non-IEEE publication while that article is under review by IEEE, the author shall immediately notify IEEE about the additional submission.

Authors have an obligation to correct errors promptly.

IEEE defines plagiarism as the use of someone else’s prior ideas, processes, results, or words without explicitly acknowledging the original author and source. Plagiarism in any form is unacceptable and is considered a serious breach of professional conduct, with potentially severe ethical and legal consequences. Section 8.2.4.D provides detailed guidelines for a) handling allegations of plagiarism, b) applying appropriate corrective actions when findings of plagiarism have been reached, and c) referencing previously published material.

Fabrication or falsification of any aspect of an article is unacceptable.

Except as indicated in IEEE Policies, Section 6.4 (Multiple Publication of Original Technical Material in IEEE Periodicals), authors should only submit original work that has neither appeared elsewhere for publication, nor which is under review for another publication. If authors have used their own previously published work(s) as a basis for a new submission, they are required to cite the previous work(s) and very briefly indicate how the new submission offers substantive novel contributions beyond those of the previously published work(s). Section 8.2.4.F provides guidelines for handling instances of inappropriate multiple submission and prior publication.

Authors should not discuss any aspect of an article under evaluation with reviewers of the submitted article.

Only those articles of a researcher’s publication record that are directly relevant to the subject matter of the article under consideration should be included in the bibliography. Furthermore, an article shall be appropriately labeled as “submitted” when still in the review process or “accepted” when it has been accepted for publication but has not yet been published.

The IEEE assumes that the material submitted to its publications is properly available for general dissemination to the readership of those publications. It is the responsibility of the authors, not the IEEE, to determine whether disclosure of their material requires the prior consent of other parties and, if so, to obtain it. If authors make use of charts, photographs, or other graphical or textual material from previously published material, the authors are responsible for obtaining written permission to use the material in the article.

An author, in offering an article for presentation at an IEEE conference, or accepting an invitation to present an article, is expected to be present at the meeting to deliver the article. In the event that circumstances unknown at the time of submission of an article preclude its presentation by an author, the program chair should be informed on time, and appropriate substitute arrangements should be made. IEEE reserves the right to exclude an article from distribution after the conference (e.g., not placed on IEEE Xplore) if the article is not presented at the conference.

Revisions to the Section 8.2.1.B - Responsibilities of Authors of Articles Published by IEEE, as contained in this manual, require the review and approval of the IEEE Board of Directors, using the process in accordance with IEEE Bylaw I-300.4(5).